04/27/2008
I have to admit that I am guilty of voting for President George W. Bush and I am guilty of supporting our invasion of Iraq. At the time I believed it was the right thing for us to do. With the Twin Towers attack and the War on Terror and Saddam Hussein’s WMD’s and of course UBL on the run I thought the only solution to the whole thing was to invade Iraq and topple the Hussein Regime. I also thought when we went into Afghanistan that we went in there to pull out UBL and bring him to justice so I supported that part of the War on Terror as well.
After all the hype about the WMD’s and Saddam’s defiance started to calm down it was clear that we had false Secret Service information. Our main objective, to me, was to topple Saddam’s Regime and to rid Iraq of WMD’s. I believe that once those two objectives were reached that the war would have ended. We finally captured Saddam brought down his Regime. He went to trial and was hanged for charges unrelated to the War on Terror which he never had a chance to go to court for. And then the discovery that there were not any WMD’s in Iraq it was in my opinion time to pull out and bring our soldiers home.
I never expected the war to last this long and I never expected the amount of casualties and injuries that our soldiers are facing. I also am astonished at the number of Iraqi civilians that have been killed and/or maimed because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It seems to me the longer we stay in Iraq to fight this War on Terror it becomes clearer and clearer that we are there for the Oil and no other reason. I feel that the World was deceived into believing that we were justified by attacking Saddam and bringing down his Regime. It seems to me our objective never really was WMD’s or the Regime but Oil. If the Oil didn’t play a role in this you can be sure that our troops would be home by now. Or worse yet, you can almost be sure that we never would have attacked in the first place.
At any rate it is always easy to play Monday morning quarterbacking especially when you have the amount of years behind the war as we have now accumulated. But it is too late to go back and change what was done. I am not a military analyst so I cannot begin to strategize how best to bring our troops home. But I believe that that should be their main objective at this point. I realize we cannot just pull out because that would leave a vacuum and Iraq would simply collapse in on itself. It has to be done over time but the question is, how much time? Well, I think we’ve had plenty of time but Mr. Bush seems hell bent on staying the long term over there which to me is evidence enough that his main objective is clearly Oil.
Anyway, I said all that to say that I was for the war but I am now against the war and I would like to see our troops beginning to come home. I think we have occupied Iraq long enough. I think Iraq has enough money, with revenues from their oil, to sustain themselves to build a new army and to rebuild their country. I think it is time we left and let them have their country back to do as they see fit. It is after all a sovereign country and we have no business being there any longer.
The sadist casualty to suffer for this war is Darfur, Sudan. With the genocide that is going on in that country I believe it is not only proper but our duty to be over there and fighting that war to help save that country. That is where we are really needed. Darfur’s genocide has been going on for years and it has been totally ignored until now. It is finally coming into the light. The news media is finally picking up on it and we are hearing more and more about the terrible atrocities that are occurring there in that part of the world. In my heart of hearts I have to wonder why we do not pull our troops out of Iraq where we are not only not needed but not wanted and we should be sending our troops to Darfur, Sudan to help save a nation.
It seems to me there is no vested interest in Darfur which is why it has been virtually ignored until now. They have no Oil for us to fight for, they have nothing to offer us so what good reason do we have to interfere with that civil war. No we must stay the course in Iraq because we have an interest in Oil and to hell with the poor people of Darfur. It is time for President Bush and for the UN to come together and draw up a plan and go in there and save Darfur while there are still people alive to save.
To me Darfur is an embarrassment to the USA and to the UN for totally ignoring them while we fight a war primarily for Oil. It shows where our priorities are. We are not fighting a war for peace we are fighting a war for profit. If we were fighting a war for peace we would have been in Darfur a long time ago.
President Bush has just asked for another $172 billion dollars to fund his war in Iraq. I just signed a petition asking that it not be passed and I am going to supply you with a link and ask you to please go and sign the petition. It is time we stop this President from wasting so much money on a war that we are not going to win. The war in Iraq is going to go on for years and years and we cannot afford to keep putting billions of dollars into it when our debt is as high as it is.
To top it all off we are spending so much money per day, that’s per day, on the war in Iraq that we could be pouring that money into Darfur is a total shame to our government. Darfur is the first country in the history of the United States that has been accused of genocide while it is currently going on. All other times it has been declared after the fact. Since President Bush acknowledges that genocide is going on why isn’t he doing something about it?
I do not know the solutions but I am not blind to the problems. And while I cannot claim to know how to do anything about it, something has to be done to pull our troops out of Iraq and something has to be done to stop the genocide in Darfur. And it is up to the USA to do something about this. To stop fighting for profit and fight for peace. It seems to me that our country has this backwards and Bush has his head stuck up his ass.
Please take a few minutes of your time to follow these links and sign these petitions as I believe they are very important to stop the war in Iraq and to stop the Genocide in Darfur.
Petition to President Bush and the UN to stop the genocide in Darfur:
http://action.savedarfur.org/campaign/savedarfurcoalition
Petition to Rep. John Murtha of Congress to stop funding the war in Iraq:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/302/t/6080/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=986
So, for now…
